Page 132 of Heart of Thieves

Nic stands, instantly alert. “Her eyes?”

“Her mouth.”

Nic leans over her as Estelle wipes sweat from her brow with her arm. “Laurel?” she asks softly. “Are you . . . awake?”

“I didn’t ever want it to be like this.” Laurel’s voice rasps as her eyes flutter open. “All I desired for my life was to stay in Warthington forever. Maybe go into the ministry at the parish and become a priestess. Run a children’s program. Be loyal and faithful until I died.” She meets Nic’s gaze. “But it’s not about what I want, is it?”

“Loyalty should never come at the cost of our humanity,” I say.

Laurel tips her head to look at me, lines pulling in the corners of her mouth. “You’re just like them.”

“Who?”

“The Liar. The Thief. Seaspawn demons. Twisting words to sound godly while hiding monstrosity within.”

“They were cursed by the same moonshard you were,” I point out, trying to keep irritation from sharpening my words.

“Their souls were corrupted by the Deep long before they got that moonshard.” Her eyes shine, too wide, too desperate.

I catch Nic’s attention and nod at the pistol in his belt. He grimaces, raising his hand toward it.

Laurel inspects the open wounds on her wrist. “I didn’t want this destiny, but the gods brought me to it. Moved my family to Warthington. Drew me to strike up a relationship with Nic. Compelled me to meet him in the temple that night. Gave me the speed and the strength to catch that moonshard as it fell so at least a portion of the power that was meant for me would find its way.”

Estelle looks like she’s going to be sick. She gathers up the splinters of voratium, scrabbling about on all fours. Laurel continues to look at her hands, turning them over and sideways as though admiring Estelle’s handiwork.

After a moment, she stands.

Estelle, Nic, and I scramble to our feet. Nic points the pistol at Laurel, but Estelle holds up a hand. “Laurel,” she says quietly. “Let’s end this. I miss you.”

Laurel looks at her with pity. “Precious of you to say, Estelle, but I haven’t finished.”

My stomach twists, but I keep my expression smooth. “We can’t let you do that.”

“Let me?” she repeats with a smirk. “What, you think my power resided in the voratium?” She smiles a tired, eerie smile as she uses those bleeding hands to pull apart the top buttons of her blouse and bare the skin over her heart.

Eerie, bluish light pulses there.

“Those bits of voratium fused with me. Filled me,” Laurel says in a feather-soft voice. She spreads her hands wide, and I watch in horror as the veins in her arm—that lacy network of light inside her skin—begin to glow exactly as they did before, even though Estelle left not a single sliver of the metal behind.

The odd iridescence of Laurel’s blood . . . When the moonshard broke, it didn’t just leave pieces embedded in her skin; it filled her blood with magic. Voratium particles like Enzo used in my tattoo’s ink. Like Nic put in the Liar’s Den’s cocktails.

Laurel smiles. “I am the moonshard now.”

Blinding light fills the room as ice slams through me, jerking my limbs out of my grasp.

“Estelle, Nic, run!” I scream before my jaw slams shut and my body jerks like a puppet on strings.

Nic’s finger twitches on the trigger, but Laurel blasts my magic through me so hard and so fast he goes careening back into a wall of shelves, which promptly collapses around him as his pistol drops from his grasp.

“How very kind of you, Nic,” Laurel says through my mouth, “to bring me a conduit.”

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

NIC

Laurel channels my magic through Lola, blasting it back at me. Light shards across my vision as my sinews shred, and the pain of the shelves crashing down on me is nothing compared to the illusionary agony razing my bones.

Lola screams.